#wonderfulindonesia Jogja: Day 3

Woke up early again and 430am already on the road. You know, I will only be super energetic and become a morning person when I’m on holiday 😄 (kalau bangun pegi keje macam nak kena pukul rasanya).

It was still dark and cold when an uncovered jeep took us to ride up to the mountain base and ‘picnic’ at the rocky lava field to watch the sunrise. I will never forget the fun of the bumpy ride, OMG it was awesome and crazy!

Merapi is the most active volcano in Indonesia. The tragedy happened in October 2010 had claimed 353 lives. The last eruption was in 11 May 2018. 

My thought and prayer to all the victims. 

Taken at 7:12am. We were lucky to have a good weather, clear skies which made us able to view the summit of Mount Merapi. Absolutely wondrous view. 

Tips: I would suggest you to wear a proper shoe, best with boots if you wanna come here because as you can see, the field is full with volcanic stones. And also, bring a wind breaker. You’ll need it the most when riding on the jeep. 

After the fun-ride and a visit to Merapi Museum, we went to Borobudur Temple.

It was damn scorching hot day!

This is the largest Buddhist temple in the world (while Angkor Wat is the largest Hindu temple in the world cum the largest religious monument in the world). 

The temple designs inspired by Javanese Buddhist architecture and Gupta art. It has undertaken (and still preserve) several restorations by Indonesian government and UNESCO, as one of the World Heritage Site. 

To be honest, I wasn’t interested to go to these kind of places. I don’t like cities and buildings. But then I found myself fascinated when listening to the stories, the history, the meaning of those sculptures and drawings, also the basic of Buddha teachings (although it was scorching hot at that time). I guess our tour guide knows how to make it exciting, with addition of some jokes. 😄

So in my opinion, if you want to visit especially historical places, it’s better to hire a tour guide or at least read about the history before going there. Or else, you gonna miss a lot of significant points. 

Next, with our sweaty shirt, we continued to our next location à Kalibiru.

First, the driving up there requires some impressive skills. And our young driver totally nailed it. It was a bit scary to ride on the winding road and up to 45 degrees’ hill, but it was really fun. Scary but fun! 😄

Not only our car must be ‘fit’, but we need to pump up our stamina too when we required to walk up about 100m. Pheww it’s tiring to be frank. 

Overlooking the artificial lake Sermo Reservoir, The Kalibiru National Park offers many photo spots, with a price. Starts from 10k, you can choose a different platform, with the same view basically. We chose the big stage to fit 5 of us. Then I chose this High Rope Adventure which has 6 activities, the 2 meter Rock climbing + Spider web + Single line rope + Hanging bridge + 30 meters Flying Fox. For the sake of good pics. Hehe.

We went there almost at the closing time and the sky was dark, so we missed the blue-ish view of the lake. I would recommend to go during sunrise or before the late noon because it has a perfect brightness for your photo. Tak la jadi macam gambar di atas yang di edit terlampau oleh jurugambar berbayar, sampai nampak macam tampal guna Photoshop je 😄

We were so exhausted after a looong day and went back to hotel. Oh before that, we stopped at the food street stall to buy ‘Murtabak Manis’. It’s actually an ‘apam balik’ with many toppings such as cheese, chocolate rice, nuts, almonds and yeah, its SOOOO MANISSS! Seriusly bole kena kencing manis. But sooo sedap!

Reached hotel, bathed and rest for awhile, then out to Malioboro street again to enjoy coffee. The famous coffee here is Kopi Joss, the charcoal coffee. Pahit namati. Eark!

But I enjoyed the Indonesia cappuccino, sambil ditemani alunan lagu dendangan seniman jalanan yang asik bermain gitar.

A good way to end a day J

Esok da balik KL. Sobb~

#wonderfulindonesia Jogja: Day 2

We left as early as 5am to catch the clouds at Jurang Tembelan. The carpet clouds will be gone if we’re late. This place is amazing to watch sunrise, feels the fogs and the morning dew from the country-side hill’s edge. Interestingly, you can choose as many props and take as many photos as you want, because they’re free, unless you hire a pro-photographer that always available there.

You can walk on the clouds.

Next, we went for cave tubing at Goa Pindul, it was so fun! We learnt facts of the cave, got to see alot of bats and many beautiful crystals. The significant was, we had a good laugh with the tour guide, forgot his name tho. He’s damn hilarious and his jokes were unpredictable. Some of them hit straight to my liver. Haha! 😂

Let me tell you one of his jokes – but I have to say it in Bahasa. Please read it in Java slang. Hehe.

*while cruising on the tube, he pointed to the crystals on the cave ceiling, with torchlight.

Me: Bole tak ambil kita ambil sedikit kristal tu?

He: Iyaa semestinya boleh. Kristal ini sangat unik dan ajaib ya. Setiap hari ramai orang yang datang dan mengambilnya selama berpuluh tahun tapi ianya tidak pernah habis.

Us: Woahhh

Me: Gimana mau ambilnya? Tinggi tu harus dipanjat.

He: Caranya mudah aja yaa. Sambil-sambil duduk didalam tiub, bole diambil saja menggunakan hepe (handphone)

Us: HAHAHAHAHAHampeh!!!

The tubing activity took about almost 2 hours, from the cave we continued to the nearby river for a tube-rafting. It was so fun, you should try it.

The color of the water is not the same as you googled.

Then, we went to Timang Beach. The most awaited gondola ride. Yeheayy!!

Luckily I accompanied by my bestfriend, we took gondola ride while the guys chose to take hanging bridge instead. 

Here’s the fun fact:

• If you’re scared, take the gondola. Trust me, it looks scarier but it’s just less than a minute. 
• The bridge, may look steadier, more secured and more convincing, but it’s actually scarier. Haha. Seriously, you may get startled, stunned, petrified and hardly move in the middle. That what happened to the guys. Wahaha!

You can only choose either one of these two, unless you wanna pay for both. Glad I took the gondola, it’s really enjoyable but too bad, I missed the fun on the bridge. Well, I should try both. 

In the middle of 2 options

After spending almost 2 hours at Timang Beach (damn it was so hot but didn’t realize because we were too busy taking photos), we headed for lunch at Pak Sis Lobster. Yeah lobster guys! You got to choose your own lobster and type of dishes you want. The lobsters were big, the food soo yummeh and it’s cheap!!

You will not get this for RM320 in Malaysia

Before heading back to hotel, we stopped at Bukit Bintang to enjoy a sunset view. The journey took about 1h 30m drive to reach here, so I was about feeling hungry again. Hehe. From this hill top, we can see the airport and city landscape. While having Pisang bakar cheese and chocolate for tea-time, we adore the scenic panorama, from bright sky turned to dark night with beautiful lights. 

The desserts were too sweet to handle but too yummy to resist

Then, we headed straight to hotel for a little rest and then went out for dinner at Malioboro street. I had Nasi Ayam penyet, no photos taken because it’s too ordinary. Hehe.

A beautiful view from the top of Bukit Bintang

How does it feel to be a vegetarian

Surely many of you have heard about vegetarian and vegan. I wasn’t so clear about the difference until I read this explanation:

“Neither vegans nor vegetarians eat meat. However, while vegetarians tend to consume dairy products and eggs, a vegan avoids all animal products, including eggs and dairy, and often inedible animal-based products, such as leather, wool, and silk. Vegetarianism is usually a diet, while veganism is a lifestyle.”

  

Last month, I went to my friend’s wedding and was served a vegetarian course. That was not my first time trying veggie food, I had a few times before since ~10 years ago.

So it’s not to my surprise that the food was delicious. Not only that, the presentation was superb too. Hence, I take this initiative to show these to you.

Romantic Four Combinations

Braised Shark's Fin Soup with Vegetables 

Barbecue King Oyster Mushroom with Pineapple & Bell Peppers
served with Two Varieties of Rice in Japanese Style

Pan-fried Seaweed Fish with Special Sauce

Stir Fried Kailan and Eggplant
with Hot & Spicy Sauce

Treasure Golden Inari

Double-boiled Apricot Seed
with Snow Fungus & Honey Melon

Romantic Chinese Pastries

Don't they look yummeh??

Yeah it was and I felt so full.

These days, the number of people turning to be vegan is rising, due to the need to practice a healthy life-style or doing it for the sake of animal rights. Whatever the reason is, I respect all individual’s choice. It is important to observe and check the food we consume, because ‘we are what we eat’

Probably I will try the Veganuary.

But the only thing I don’t agree is when people criticize other people for their choice.

If you think being a vegan is good, don’t condemn people for eating meat.

If you still enjoy eating meat, don’t question people for being vegan.

In my honest opinion, I believe God create animals for us to eat. It’s never a sin to eat animals, but of course, only certain animals. Anyway, it’s gonna be a long long lecture to explain the types of animal that are allowed to eat, etc; so I’m just gonna drop the topic.

For now, be thankful for your ability to enjoy food on your table. 

Bon Appetit!

Koko restaurant @Pulau Kapas

I didn’t know it was quite a bad idea to go to East Coast islands in September. As monsoon is coming, it rains almost every day. When we arrived in the morning about 930am, the sky was cloudy and started to rain. But Alhamdulillah not so heavy.

On the 2nd day, it was a bright sunny, only drizzling in the evening. 

And it’s also not a good time to swim because jellyfish season has started apparently. We can see many of them from the island jetty. But as advised, it’s better to swim in the afternoon till early evening to avoid them. So we had to cancel a snorkeling trip. Instead, we just swam at the shoreline and did kayaking. But still, it has corals and we can see many type of fish too. I found a family of Nemo!

I went with 3 other friend-colleagues. They’re from Philippines and I’m glad that I got to introduce one of our best islands in Peninsular. The island is only about 6km from Marang jetty, so we can actually see the mainland from the island. It’s still beautiful with the clear blue water.

Other than my experience swimming, crawling, climbing and hiking to the Bukit Singa, there’s nothing much highlight for this trip. But one thing I wanna share out loud is the Koko restaurant. The food there was amazing and delicious. The people were so friendly and the abang chef was so nice to spend times to chit chat with us.

Basically, they offered a local food. We had dinner there for 2 nights and tried the delicious Chicken with Coco sauce. Well, its actually a ‘ayam masak lemak cili padi’. My damn favorite kot! Then we tried masak singgang or I think they called it Ginger sauce. I forgot the type of fish, but it was very yummy. We also ate fried King Fish with sweet sour sauce which was so tasty too! 

😋

3-meals dinner for 4

The yummy masak lemak cili padi

Masak singgang ikan

To those who want to go to Pulau Kapas, I definitely recommend this restaurant. The price is reasonable especially when you share with more than 2 people. It’s surely worth the money. 
Thumbs up! 👍